2019
In 2019 I made a wall installation in Zealand together with Wim Vonk who used a large low table to make his 3D work. Part of the wall were some of the older prints from this time. I re-painted them to fit the wall.
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Unicorns
The video Unicorns is a personal interpretation of the feeling of being on the run.
Concept en performance: Marja van Putten
Video en editing: Lyk Burggraaff
MELKMEISJE, SNIPPET
2019, 210 x 160 cm
Milkmaids are printed by the meter and cheap to buy. I sewed parts of the image on a canvas and stuffed the parts to make them 3D like soft pillows. (which you don’t see on this picture).
Milkmaid is now split into pieces, a structure behind forms a contrast. There is also a code snippet saying that she is the future most famous painting….
https://www.marjavanputten.nl/portfolio/
History, Herstory, my story.
The Milkmaid, self-portrait, was made in 1993 from autobiographical motifs. It is a key work in my work. A key work because it was the beginning of a whole series of paintings made with ‘kitchen tools’, such as the whipped cream syringe, a butter knife, but also sewn cups, Brabants coloured squares on canvas. The work Melkmeisje, schip vaart voorbij is about the desire for something completely different and unknown.
Girls in my neighbourhood
In 2003 I showed a series of half digital, half painted works. I saw the link of the women I saw in paintings by Dutch masters to the girls from Morocco and Turkey I saw daily at Albert Heijn and in my neighbourhood. Sometimes it seemed as if I saw them stepping out of the painting. In 2004, when Theo van Gogh was killed no more than 200 m from my house, I picked up the Milkmaid series again and continued to explore the project. Besides the Milkmaid, 3 other series have been added: The girl with the pearl earring, Van Gogh (including potato eaters), Traditionals as Zeeuws Meisje, Droste vrouw, Boterbabbelaars.
Today I regularly see paintings or images that are used to nuance or focus the discussion about women with headscarves. At the moment there is a poster hanging in the city with a woman with tablecloth on her head for an exhibition in the Amsterdam Historical Museum………
I remember that about 8 years ago a house painter came to my studio, clearly of Moroccan descent. He reacted strongly and was surprised by the headscarves that hung in my studio at the time…
At such a moment art is a miracle….!
Milkmaid and Michiel de Ruyter in Japan.
This work started the series Encounters.
A series of 18 works
2015-2017
size: 150 x 150 cm and 100 x 100 cm
In this series, started in 2015, famous and unknown people meet each other in an intimate relationship regardless of time and place.
A modest and sometimes rather funny way to ‘redesign’ the view of history. During the making of these paintings I noticed the fact that quoting is role reinforcing…
In other words only well known people or images can be quoted, it can still result into unexpected images.
Digital paintings
Some of the digital paintings I made with the Milkmaid.
Milky Way (Galaxy)
MM, on the move (roadmovie)
may 2015
Milkmaids are now available per meter. I took a large piece of fabric with me on a trip to Germany and made some pictures on the road.
What can you do woth Milkmade images.. they are all over the place…? My challenge is to add personal data to the commercialized Milkmaid image.
Van Gogh’s Pearls
Also in Van Gogh’s paintings the women wear headscarves. I started to mix well-known women, female icons with headscarves in our history. The result is a surprising image. I came across new facts… for example how Barbie also has a doll with a headscarf.
2019
In 2019 I made a wall installation in Zealand together with Wim Vonk who used a large low table to make his 3D work. Part of the wall were some of the older prints from this time. I re-painted them to fit the wall.
Whipped paint
This series was made in 1992/1993. The paint was applied with the whipped cream sprayer. Usually oil paint, which remains more massive, but it can take a long time before it is dry.
